Wednesday, July 16, 2014

At this time of year, the upper reaches of Little Cottonwood Canyon are just ripe with flowers. It just doesn't get any prettier walking through Albion Meadows during the middle of July.

After work on Tuesday I decided to pay a visit to Cecret Lake. Normally after work, I go home, eat, watch a little bit of Emergency! on the Me TV Network and sometimes even fall asleep. Then I kill some time before heading out to my run. So I asked myself, why not do something fun and a little different? Why not go for a quick hike?

It was in the mid to low 90's in they valley, but by the time I made it to the top of Alta it was in the low 80's, sunny and with a mild breeze. It was also pretty much a ghost town up there. Instead of the throngs of people that you normally find on the weekends, there was just a handful of cars and people on the trail. I figured that I was for sure going to run into wildlife on my hike.

I wound up making a loop. I took the normal, short route to Cecret Lake and then went above the lake to where the trail to Germania Pass is and headed back into Alta.

On the way to the lake, as I was walking, I spied what appeared to be a blackened stump in the middle of a stretch of grass. I wondered if it was a moose and as I got closer and realized it was! She was just sitting passively in the meadow sunning herself. As I was snapping pictures I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye, only to see another female about 20 - 30 yards away eyeballing me. I didn't quite get the camera up in time before she went and hid in the trees. I scoured the area looking for a baby moose (in which case I'd be in serious trouble) before moving on.

I wound up seeing a group of either beavers (or the largest squirrels ever) as well as a shy deer.

The full flower effect isn't out yet but I definitely liked the bouquets of pinks and reds. Just stunning colors.